A 52-day-old boy being treated for mpox — a contagious viral infection also known as monkeypox — died early Saturday at the Sindh Infectious Diseases Hospital & Research Centre (SIDH&RC) in Karachi. Hospital sources said it was the first death of an infant from the infection in the city.
The child had been under care for at least 10 days. According to those sources, he had reportedly caught the virus during circumcision at an unlicensed hospital in Malir. With this death, Sindh’s mpox fatalities this year have risen to 12, and 98 cases have been reported in the province so far.
Treatment under way at SIDH&RC
A senior doctor at the hospital, speaking on condition of anonymity, said another infant with mpox remains in critical condition. The child’s key health indicators are poor, the doctor said, and information from the parents suggests he too was circumcised at the same Malir facility. That hospital has since been sealed over concerns about infection-control practices.
Sources said at least seven patients are currently being treated for mpox at SIDH&RC, all of them Karachi residents. They include a hospital worker believed to have caught the infection at the facility, two workers from the fruit and vegetable market on the Superhighway, and a woman who reportedly contracted it from her husband.
Two earlier patients admitted with mpox who also had chronic lung and kidney disease died during treatment; their deaths were recorded as due to those long-term illnesses rather than mpox, sources said. Nearly all victims this year, sources added, have been infants or newborns who became infected in hospitals or clinics that lacked proper infection-control protocols.
How mpox spreads
Experts say mpox spreads through close contact with an infected person, or with contaminated bedding, towels, medical instruments, surfaces or objects. Dr Samreen Sarfaraz, consultant in infectious diseases and chairperson of Infection Control Services at the Indus Hospital, said people with mpox can also pass it to animals — and vice versa — through close contact, and that vertical and perinatal transmission is possible. Some people can be infectious one to four days before symptoms appear.
Most patients recover fully within two to four weeks without treatment, though some develop complications, she said. A patient stays infectious until rashes have fully healed and a fresh layer of healthy skin has formed underneath.
Prof Faisal Mahmood, senior infectious disease specialist at Aga Khan University Hospital, said mpox can spread through the air to a limited extent only when lesions or material from them are turned into aerosol — for example when a sample is taken or when lesions are in or near the airway. Compared with chickenpox or measles, he said, mpox is much less contagious. Outbreaks can arise where cleaning and infection prevention are weak, or where people are in close quarters with significant body contact.
The Sindh Health Care Commission recently sealed Ibn-i-Hassan Hospital at Malir 15 after a laboratory report confirmed an mpox case in an infant and after concerns about infection prevention and control.
Timeline: what has happened so far
- April: An mpox outbreak in Khairpur, previously linked mainly to foreign travel history, killed at least seven infants treated in intensive care at two hospitals found to lack infection-control protocols.
- This year (Sukkur): Two infants died of mpox in Sukkur district.
- Recently: The Sindh Health Care Commission sealed Ibn-i-Hassan Hospital in Malir 15 after a confirmed infant mpox case and infection-control concerns.
- Saturday: A 52-day-old boy dies at SIDH&RC — Karachi’s first infant mpox death — lifting Sindh’s yearly death toll to 12, with 98 cases reported.
Aasan alfaaz mein
Karachi mein ek chhote bachay ki mpox se maut ho gayi hai — shehar mein pehli baar itna chhota bacha is bimari se mara hai. Doctor kehte hain woh Malir ke ek hospital mein khatna ke dauran infect ho sakta hai. Sindh mein is saal ab 12 log is bimari se mar chuke hain. Ghair qanooni ya gandi hygiene wale clinics se bachon ko door rakhna zaroori hai.
